Storm Damage Stump Grinding in Murfreesboro, TN

What's left after a storm takes down a tree?

It depends on how the tree went down. There are two main kinds of storm stumps:

• Snapped trees: the trunk broke off, and a jagged stump is still standing in the ground.
• Uprooted trees: the whole tree tipped over and pulled up a big flat root ball, called a root plate, with dirt and rock stuck in it.

Snapped stumps grind like any other stump once they're cut low. Root plates are a bigger job. They stick up out of the ground, they leave a crater, and they're full of dirt and rock that's hard on a grinder.

Is it safe to cut an uprooted tree off its root ball?

Be careful here. When a tree tips over, the weight of the trunk is holding the root plate down. Cut the trunk off, and the root plate can snap back upright into the hole with a lot of force. People get hurt doing this.

Leave that cut to the tree crew or to us. Once the trunk is off and the root plate has settled, we grind it down and fill in the hole.

Why do so many trees come down in Murfreesboro storms?

Ice storms and spring wind do the most damage here. A few things make it worse in Rutherford County:

• Bradford pears are everywhere in older subdivisions, and the UT Extension landscape guide says their limbs grow at sharp angles with weak attachments that break in wind.
• Thin soil over limestone means many trees have shallow roots, so a big wind can tip them.
• Wet clay soil after a lot of rain loosens the grip roots have on the ground.

When it's bad, it's bad all at once. After one February ice storm, the City of Murfreesboro said it expected to haul about 15,000 tons of brush and limbs by the end of the month. The city said that's what it normally picks up in a whole quarter.

Will the city pick up storm stumps?

No. City brush crews pick up limbs and brush, not stumps. Murfreesboro's curbside rules say not to put out brush longer than 6 feet or more than 8 inches across. La Vergne's brush truck rules say limbs and stumps thicker than 6 inches won't be picked up, and the truck can't handle root balls. Smyrna's rules say no root balls in brush piles either.

After a big storm, even regular brush pickup can take a while. In January 2026, Smyrna's public works director told the town council that a spring surge of large piles had pushed brush pickup cycles out to about 10 weeks. Stumps were never going to be on that truck anyway.

How fast can you get to storm stumps?

After a big storm, the first calls are for trees on houses and blocking driveways. Stumps come after that. Once the tree crews have cleared the wood, we start grinding.

You can help us get to you sooner:

• Send photos of each stump or root plate
• Let us know if any trunk is still attached to a root plate
• Tell us how many stumps you have and how big they are
• Point out any fences, lines, or pipes the storm damaged near the stumps

We still need utility lines marked through Tennessee 811 before we grind. A storm doesn't change that. Downed trees pull up and move lines, so it matters even more after a storm.

What does storm stump grinding cost?

It's priced like any stump job: size, count, access, rock, and cleanup. Root plates take more time than snapped stumps because of the dirt and rock in them. Storms usually leave several stumps at once, and every extra stump on one visit costs less than the first. Read more about large and multiple stump grinding.

HOAs and property managers with storm damage across a neighborhood can see commercial, HOA and builder lot stump grinding. If the stumps are behind fences, see backyard and narrow gate access.

What happens to the crater from an uprooted tree?

Uprooted trees leave a hole where the root plate pulled out. Once we grind the root plate down, a lot of that dirt drops back into the hole. You'll usually still need some topsoil to bring it up level. We can haul chips, bring in dirt, and seed with cleanup, topsoil and grass seed.